Sr. Associate - Sales Effectiveness

Sales Effectiveness | Marsh People & Investments

We are seeking a talented individual to join our Sales Effectiveness team at Mercer. This role will be based in Atlanta, GA. This is a hybrid role requiring at least three days per week in the office.

About the role

The Sales Effectiveness Senior Associate is part of Mercer’s People & Investments practice, helping commercial leaders improve go-to-market effectiveness, sales productivity, and profitable growth. Our work spans go-to-market strategy, sales organization and role design, coverage and deployment, sales performance management, and sales incentive compensation.

In this client-facing consulting role, you will translate business challenges and quantitative analysis into practical recommendations. You will independently manage defined projects or major workstreams, develop client-ready deliverables, facilitate working sessions, and guide Analysts and Associates. We seek someone with hands-on sales compensation consulting experience who can also connect incentive design to broader commercial strategy and operating model decisions.

We will count on you to:

· Manage defined client projects and complex workstreams, including workplans, staffing estimates, milestones, budgets, deliverables, and proactive issue escalation.

· Diagnose sales effectiveness challenges through stakeholder interviews, data analysis, industry research, and assessment of current commercial practices.

· Evaluate go-to-market and sales coverage models, including customer segmentation, sales roles and responsibilities, account ownership, territory deployment, capacity, and organizational interfaces.

· Design sales incentive compensation programs, including eligibility, target pay positioning, pay mix, leverage, measures, crediting, mechanics, thresholds, and payout curves.

· Analyze sales performance, productivity, quota attainment, compensation outcomes, and plan costs; build models to evaluate design alternatives and implementation trade-offs.

· Support quota-setting, territory design, and sales performance management approaches, linking recommendations to business priorities and available data.

· Develop clear, client-ready presentations and recommendations that connect quantitative findings to commercial implications, decisions, and implementation considerations.

· Lead client interviews, project updates, analysis readouts, and design workshops; build productive working relationships with sales, sales operations, HR, and finance stakeholders.

· Delegate and review work produced by Analysts and Associates, providing coaching, quality control, and actionable feedback.

· Collaborate with Principals and Partners on proposals, methodologies, thought leadership, and development of the Sales Effectiveness team.

· Ability and willingness to travel to client sites and internal meetings as business needs require, including occasional travel on short notice. Travel frequency will vary based on project requirements.

What you need to have:

· Bachelor’s degree in business, economics, finance, or a related field.

· At least five years of relevant professional experience, including external client-facing consulting experience at a professional services firm.

· Hands-on experience assessing or designing sales incentive compensation programs (not solely administering plans or calculating commissions).

· Working knowledge of sales effectiveness topics such as coverage models, sales role design, quotas, territories, sales productivity, and/or go-to-market operating models.

· Strong analytical and financial modeling capabilities, including advanced Excel skills and the ability to interpret imperfect datasets and translate findings into recommendations.

· Demonstrated ability to independently manage consulting workstreams, develop high-quality client deliverables, and communicate findings to client stakeholders.

· Strong problem-solving, presentation, collaboration, and project management skills.

What makes you stand out:

· Experience at a sales effectiveness, commercial strategy, or management consulting firm, with exposure to both incentive compensation and upstream go-to-market strategy and/or sales organization design.

· Experience with customer segmentation, sales coverage and capacity modeling, role specialization, sales process design, and/or sales transformation.

· Ability to connect sales incentive recommendations to business strategy, selling motions, commercial economics, and seller behavior.

· Proficiency with advanced analytical tools or AI-enabled tooling.

· Industry-specific experience or expertise.

· MBA or other relevant advanced degree.

Why join our team:

· We help you be your best through professional development opportunities, interesting work and supportive leaders.

· We foster a vibrant and inclusive culture where you can work with talented colleagues to create new solutions and have impact for colleagues, clients and communities.

· Our scale enables us to provide a range of career opportunities, as well as benefits and rewards to enhance your well-being.

Marsh (NYSE: MRSH) is a global leader in risk, reinsurance and capital, people and investments, and management consulting, advising clients in 130 countries. With annual revenue of over $27 billion and more than 95,000 colleagues, Marsh helps build the confidence to thrive through the power of perspective. For more information, visit marsh.com, or follow us on LinkedIn and X.

Marsh is committed to embracing a diverse, inclusive and flexible work environment. We aim to attract and retain the best people and embrace diversity of age background, disability, ethnic origin, family duties, gender orientation or expression, marital status, nationality, parental status, personal or social status, political affiliation, race, religion and beliefs, sex/gender, sexual orientation or expression, skin color, veteran status (including protected veterans), or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. If you have a need that requires accommodation, please let us know by contacting reasonableaccommodations@marsh.com.

Marsh is committed to hybrid work, which includes the flexibility of working remotely and the collaboration, connections and professional development benefits of working together in the office. All Marsh colleagues are expected to be in their local office or working onsite with clients at least three days per week. Office-based teams will identify at least one “anchor day” per week on which their full team will be together in person.